Nostalgia hits, then gets conquered by Cordon Bleu

This past week has really been a blast. After starting French last Thursday, we really started getting in the swing of things, learning conjugations, vocabulary, possessives, etc. It's been pretty difficult, but I'm doing very well relative to the other foreigners in my class. Then again, we have a test on Monday, so we'll see how that goes.

In other news, this past Wednesday we went on our second class trip to the Louvre. The first was spent looking at some Caravaggio paintings and a bit of some early Spanish Baroque paintings, but I think this trip was better.

We spent most of our time looking at paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, who my professor says was the most successful painter of the 17th century. Many of his works were commissioned by Marie de Medici, including an entire set of 24 paintings that describe her life from start to finish. They are no doubt a lie, but nonetheless beautiful works of art.

The class trip made me feel even better about my choice to take Baroque and Rococo art this semester. I was originally signed up to take a Renaissance art course, but this professor is fantastic, and every museum visit is essentially a guided tour by an art expert. Unlike some of my classes at Wisconsin, I actually look forward to going to this one, and even though we do have to sit through hour-long lectures, I actually enjoy learning about something completely new for a change.

But the best news came near the end of our Louvre visit, when Jon — who had tagged along for the tour — reminded me that we had our demonstration and tasting at the Cordon Bleu (ever hear of Julia Childs?). Whoopee.

Aside from being a very entertaining two-hour presentation, we got to eat a lot of the desserts the chef made himself. He made coconut crème brûlée, pistachio crème brûlée, passion fruit sorbet, chocolate sorbet and tea lace tuile cookies, all of which were obviously delicious. Don't worry, I got the recipes and wrote down detailed instructions on how to make the dishes, so hopefully we'll be making them soon. The only unfortunate part about my Wednesday was that I forgot my camera. I didn't get any pictures at the Cordon Bleu, but our friend Emanuelle got a shot of me, Jon and the chef, so I'll post that when it's available.

As for the nostalgia, I talked to Benjy on Facebook for about 10 minutes, and he told me to look at his blog (benjysfoodanddrink.blogspot.com), where I saw his most recent post on Wisconsin food and drink. The Old Fashioned, Brocach, The Blue Marlin. While French food is really great, sometimes all you want is some good ol' Wisconsin comfort food. It's pretty tough to get mac n' cheese in Paris.

No worries though. Mom and Dad come on Tuesday, and they should provide ample amounts of restaurant dinners and bottles of wine (fingers crossed). I promise to show them my few secrets of Paris in return.